Posted on 02/22/2020 6:21:04 AM PST by Kaslin
MADISON — As the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) faces a lawsuit over its policy on student gender identity, it’s being accused of discriminating against transgender teachers in the bathroom.
On Tuesday, Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI) fired out a press release asserting it supports equal restroom access for MMSD students and staff. The union doesn’t like the district’s directive to Frank Allis Elementary school staff to “limit their use of restroom facilities to the single person restroom.”
The union’s Equity and Diversity Committee, as well as MTI’s board of directors, released a statement saying that they “stand with Vica Steel and all our transgender, gender non-binary, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual or allied (LGBTQIA) staff.”
Steel is a transgender science teacher at Frank Allis. In a letter published in Our Lives Magazine last month, Steel claims that she used the women’s/girls’ bathroom across from her classroom beginning in January after coming out last March. The district received a complaint and asked the elementary school’s principal to come up with a policy barring staff from using the same bathrooms as students.
“MTI supports staff’s and students’ right to fully exercise their individually identified expression in an environment free from discrimination of any kind,” the union said.
In short, MTI supports transgender women (who used to be men) or men transitioning into women (and vice versa) using student bathrooms.
If all access is granted to transgender and transitioning students, then it must be applied to teachers, the union insists.
MTI demands the school district:
Will that include the voices of staff who disagree with the union and the district about their ideas of “equal restroom” access?
MTI President Andy Waity did not return a call or an email from Empower Wisconsin seeking comment.
As the union notes in its press release, MMSD does not have a districtwide policy which restricts staff restroom use. It is common practice for adults to use multi-stall restrooms, the union asserts.
“Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions,” the union press release concludes.
But the transgender bathroom issue is more than just a distraction. It’s a legitimate concern for parents and students in the district.
MMSD spokesman Tim LeMonds recently told the Cap Times that a Frank Allis Elementary School parent whose child reported feeling uncomfortable using a children’s bathroom contacted the district to ask about what district practice is ”regarding adults using children’s bathrooms.”
Steel wrote on Facebook that she wasn’t following the district’s order. She’s still using the women’s/girls’ bathroom across from her classroom.
“I can’t say what will happen next, but I am hopeful that they (the district) will proceed with more care and that they will bring more voices, especially transgender voices and the voices of other marginalized people, to the table so any change of policy or practice is non-discriminatory,” Steel wrote.
It’s been a rough week for MMSD.
On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a lawsuit alleging district policies that enable children, at any age, to change their gender identity at school without parental notice or consent violate the constitution. More so, the public-interest law firm alleges, the policy instructs district employees to “conceal and even deceive parents about the gender identity their son or daughter has adopted.”
Why does the union care unless their intentions are bad?
OK ef that, my kid is going to private school.
This is a step too far even for most on the left.
People on the left have daughters in sports who have no chance due to competing against biological men.
Both of these issues are the kind that demoralize voters.
The leftist can’t speak out because they will have destroyed careers and reputations. But they might sit out an election or even secretly vote the other way...
I also know people on the left who really hate the whole “cultural appropriation” thing
Home School!!
But any nation which allows it to become the norm does NOT deserve to survive.
I hope this is the beginning of the END of Teachers’ Unions.
I can only hope.
Teachers should never have been using elementary school kids’ facilities IMO.
People who send their kids to public schools like this are child abusers.
They are opening themselves up to lawsuits from their kids after the kids become adults.
There shouldn’t be any such thing as a “transgender educator”. The mentally insane should not be teaching.
What could go wrong?
Heck, it worked for the Boy Scouts.
You are misinformed
BSA has extensive Youth Protection Training and one on one is not allowed. There must and is always two deep leadership
Madison, 35 square miles surrounded by reality.
We’re going to need a lot of tar and feathers.
what’s next? lower legal age of consent to 6?
Legal pedophilia here we come!
These people are deranged. But the Left has been ‘normalizing deranged’ for years. We just won’t get with the program.
I am confused by this. If the BSA was so careful, why are they being sued out of existence? This is a serious question.
Exhibitionist child predators.
They do not feel uncomfortable in the right bathroom. They want the normies to feel uncomfortable in the right bathroom.
” and all our transgender, gender non-binary, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual or allied (LGBTQIA) staff.”
That covers all the bases of a well adjusted pubic teacher’s lounge.
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